**Chapter 331: The Greedy King’s Court**

**[Timeline: Days After the Scorched Ridge]**

**[Location: The Neutral Zone – Jagged Canyons]**

The silence in the canyon was absolute.

A moment ago, the narrow pass had been a localized dimension of incinerating heat, a 6th-Order Purgatory designed to melt bone to ash. Now, the air was freezing. The jagged obsidian walls, flash-cooled by the sudden erasure of thermal energy, groaned under the suffocating weight of the 8th Order.

Lord Pythios, the Master of the Flame Tower, knelt in the dirt. His jaw trembled, his crimson robes clinging to his shaking frame. He tried to summon his mana, to reignite the spark of his Arch-Mage core, but the ambient mana in the atmosphere refused to answer him. It was completely subjugated by the figure standing before him.

Damien Voss didn’t move aggressively. He stood with the effortless grace of a man taking a stroll through his own courtyard. His mismatched eyes—one a void of pitch-black shadow, the other a blazing, tyrannical gold, both split by the cross-shaped pupils of the Eclipse Core—looked down at Pythios.

High above, hovering near the shattered rift in the sky, Theron and Elizabeth Voss watched their son. They didn’t descend to intervene. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"Look at him, Theron," Elizabeth whispered, her silver-white hair catching the ambient light of the dimensional tear. A proud, radiant smile graced her flawless features. "He isn’t just surviving anymore. He is conquering."

Theron Voss, the King of Darkness, crossed his massive arms. His deep blue eyes gleamed with profound satisfaction as he looked at the flawless fusion of Shadow and Dragon Aura swirling around Damien.

"He has refined the darkness," Theron rumbled, a rare, genuine chuckle vibrating in his chest. "He took my shadows and the Emperor’s gold, and he forged them into a crown. Let’s see how he handles the Empire’s lapdogs."

Down on the canyon floor, Pythios finally found his voice. It was a pathetic, cracked wheeze.

"An 8th Order..." Pythios choked out, staring at the terrifying mask marked with a ’0’. "How... how is this possible? The Abyss... it was supposed to break you!"

"The Abyss is an excellent teacher," Damien said smoothly, his voice resonating with a metallic, layered echo. "It taught me that the world does not belong to the righteous. It belongs to the greedy."

Pythios’s humiliation finally breached the threshold of his terror. He was the Master of the Flame Tower. He was a Peak 6th-Order Arch-Mage. To be forced to his knees without a single spell being cast was a stain on his soul that could never be washed away.

"I am Imperial Vanguard!" Pythios shrieked, his sanity fracturing. He forced himself to his feet, biting his own lip until blood ran down his chin to break the mental paralysis.

He didn’t try to cast a Domain again. He gathered every single drop of his life force and mana core, compressing it into his hands. The air warped violently as a miniature, blinding white sun formed between his palms.

"Burn! BURN WITH ME, ZERO!"

**[Arch-Mage Secret Art: Supernova Singularity]**

Pythios thrust his hands forward, unleashing a beam of hyper-condensed plasma straight at Damien’s chest. It was a suicidal attack, a spell designed to vaporize the caster along with the target.

"Professor!" Lukas screamed from the dirt, recognizing the sheer density of the heat.

Damien didn’t dodge. He didn’t use *[Phantom Speed]* to evade. He simply raised his left hand, clad in a sleek, dark leather glove.

"You spoke of the gap between Orders," Damien whispered.

The beam of blinding plasma struck his open palm.

There was no explosion. There was no shockwave.

The moment the 6th-Order fire touched the dark leather, it met the absolute, devouring void of the Hollow King’s Shadow. The twilight-colored energy wrapping Damien’s hand didn’t just block the heat; it swallowed it whole. The blazing beam of plasma was sucked into Damien’s palm like water spiraling down a drain.

In less than a second, the blinding light vanished.

Damien stood there, unharmed, his dark leather glove not even singed.

Pythios stared at Damien’s empty hand, his mind completely shattering. "My... my fire... it’s gone. You ate it."

"Fire requires oxygen and fuel," Damien stated coldly, lowering his hand. "In my Court, you have neither."

Damien took a single step forward. He didn’t draw the Pantheon Sword. He didn’t need to. He simply expanded his Will.

**[Will Art: King’s Mantle]**

A ripple of pure, undeniable Intent expanded from Damien’s body. It swept over Pythios and washed over the thousands of Imperial Knights paralyzed at the end of the canyon.

It was the physical manifestation of the Greedy King’s absolute dominance.

*THUD. THUD. THUD.*

Behind Pythios, the entire Imperial Army collapsed. Thousands of elite knights fell face-first into the obsidian dirt, unconscious, their minds simply shutting down under the sheer, suffocating weight of an 8th-Order soul commanding them to sleep.

Pythios didn’t pass out. Damien deliberately kept him awake to feel the crushing gravity. The Arch-Mage was driven into the ground, the bones in his arms and legs snapping simultaneously under the pressure.

"You..." Pythios gurgled, pinned flat against the stone, his eyes rolling back in sheer agony.

"Tell Aurelius," Damien said, looking down at the broken Master of the Flame Tower. "Tell the Emperor that his era of peace is over. Tell him that the ghost he banished to hell has returned to collect his debts."

Damien flicked his wrist. A concentrated pulse of kinetic shadow slammed into Pythios’s chest, shattering his mana core permanently and launching his unconscious body into the pile of sleeping Imperial Knights.

The battle was over. It hadn’t even been a fight; it was a casual dismissal of an insect.

The suffocating 8th-Order pressure vanished instantly, retracting back into Damien’s body until the air in the canyon felt light and breathable again.

Isabelle, who had stood loyally at Damien’s side throughout the display, smiled warmly beneath her demon horns, her ruby-red eyes filled with absolute reverence.

Yes after thinking about it for a bit, he decided to call her back, after all she would also want to meet Alaric and the others after so long

Doing this, Damien turned around. The terrifying, god-like entity known as Zero seemed to melt away.

He reached up and unclasped the sleek, angular mask marked with a ’0’, letting it vanish into his void gen

He didn’t leave his face bare. With a flick of his wrist, he retrieved a familiar, elegant silver half-mask and placed it over his eyes. Beneath it, his pale, unweathered face broke into a gentle, familiar smile.

Alaric, Elena, and Lukas stared at him from the dirt. They were battered, bleeding, and exhausted, but as they looked at the silver mask and the mismatched, cross-pupiled eyes of their teacher, their own eyes went wide with overwhelming relief.

"You took your time, Professor," Alaric grunted, a wet, choked laugh escaping his lips as he let his heavy head fall back against the dirt. The Titan’s Capacitor in his chest finally slowed its frantic thumping.

Lukas was openly weeping, holding his blistered, gauntlet-less arms to his chest. "We... we didn’t use tricks, Professor. Just like you taught us."

Elena tapped her temple, her emerald eyes shining with tears. "You’re late for class."

Damien’s smile softened. He walked over to them, his boots crunching softly on the obsidian floor. He knelt down, placing a hand on Alaric’s massive shoulder, sending a gentle wave of stabilizing Golden Aura into his students’ battered bodies to ease their pain.

"You did well," Damien said, his voice filled with genuine, profound pride. "All of you. You survived the world while I was gone. I couldn’t ask for better students."

He stood back up, looking affectionately at the three teenagers who had marched into hell to find a way to save him.

"However," Damien smirked, gesturing toward the sky. "I didn’t come back alone."

Alaric, Elena, and Lukas followed his gaze upward.

Slowly, effortlessly floating down from the bleeding rift in the sky, Theron and Elizabeth Voss descended. The King of Darkness and the Empress of Deceit landed softly on the canyon floor, their majestic, overwhelming auras perfectly restrained.

Elizabeth’s eyes were misty as she looked at the three battered students, recognizing the fierce loyalty they held for her son. Theron offered a booming, approving grin that reminded Alaric terrifyingly of Damien’s own smirk.

"Class F," Damien said, gesturing to the two legends of the First Era. "I believe you’ve read about them in your history textbooks."

Damien placed a hand over his heart, a playful gleam returning to his mismatched eyes.

"Mom. Dad. I’d like you to meet my students."

As he said this Damien turned back to the three teenagers. Beneath his elegant silver half-mask, his mismatched eyes softened with a quiet, profound warmth that rarely graced his face.

He had spent an eternity clawing his way through the suffocating darkness of the Abyss, driven by a desperate, selfish hunger to return to his world.

But seeing Alaric’s unyielding stance, Elena’s fierce pride, and Lukas’s resilient spirit, he realized the truth. They hadn’t just survived; they had fought for him.

"Thank you," Damien whispered softly, his voice carrying over the cold obsidian wind, meant only for them.

"For not giving up on yourselves... and for not giving up on me. It is truly good to see you again, Class F. I’m glad to be home."